Massachusetts Bay Colony Research Paper

Following the discovery of the American continent, the New World mainly attracted young European men looking for adventure, business opportunities or entrusted with a religious mission. When it reached Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, the Mayflower brought the first wave of British Puritan families seeking to establish a colony and permanently settle in America. The Puritan settlements rapidly grew throughout the following decades, as new waves of European Puritans undertook their dangerous journey across the Atlantic ocean in order to flee persecution in Europe and seek a new refuge where they could freely practise their religion. The second and much larger wave of Puritans left England in the 1630s and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, …show more content…
The core idea was that of a one-on-one relationship with God relying on faith, sola fide, which could not be mediated by priests. Persecuted in Europe, the protestants saw in America a new hope. They founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the desire to create “A City upon a Hill”, the utopia of a model Christian city to be emulated and envied by others. However, challenged by a harsh and foreign land and threatened by Native Americans, a strict organisation based on the community, the family unit, and the adherence to moral principles and beliefs was enforced. In The Scarlet Letters, this is best evidenced by the mass retaliation and social exclusion suffered by Hester Prynne, who is sentenced to wearing the scarlet letter A for adultery for all to see, and who must stand on the scaffold every day to face public shame. Far from the original ideas of individualism and sola fide, the community is to punish those who disobey religious principles. Hawthorne also brings out the influence of religion on the organisation of the public life. As Hester Prynne walks to the scaffold for the first time, a woman says: “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? …show more content…
Many of those who initiated the beginning of modern science were Protestants, such as Robert Boyle, a mechanical philosopher who thought the natural world functionned mechanically in the same manner as a clock, or Francis Bacon, who advocated the scientific method based on empiricism and replicability. In The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth appears to be man of science and intellect. However, his thirst for revenge and pure commitment to science without consideration for religion damages his spirit, eventually turning him into an evil person. Rather than trying to show an apparent incompatibility between science and religion, Hawthorne suggests that science must be studied from the perspective of Christian theology. He was in fact strongly influenced by Cotton Mather, who argued in The Christian Philosopher that by magnifying the glory of God, science fostered devotion towards God and helped in the understanding of his will and laws. Roger Chillingworth’s path to doom shows that the faithless practice of science, often associated in the novel with witchcraft and magic, can harm one’s spirit.
In the Scarlet Letter, the forest is the place with little order and law where Hester Prynne seeks refuge

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